By Barbara Wolfenden, BA, BSW (Hons), PhD candidate. La Trobe University, also The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health

‘You are too young to have a stroke, it must be something else…’, was my bewildering inpatient encounter with young stroke in 2004. I was discharged home after 36 hours of observation, with medication to treat migraine, but no further pursuit of diagnosis. I was treated free-of-charge in a public hospital. I retrieved my Discharge Forms under the Freedom of Information Act. Recorded on my discharge notes was, ‘Mild headache with shimmering in eye but unlike usual migraine – quickly relieved with paracetamol’. Read More